Knowledge Base

Raspberry Pi Serial Port Usage

Created 02/10/2015 | How to use the serial port on your Raspberry Pi with a Serial Pi

The serial port on the Raspberry Pi is configured as default for console input/output. This allows you to login and interact with the Raspberry Pi via the serial port but you cannot use the serial port with your programs.

To use the serial port with other programs and hardware such as modems, arduino boards etc you need to disable the console login.

To Disable Serial Port Login

You need to edit two files in order to use the serial port with your own programs.

When the Raspberry Pi boots, the bootup information is sent to the serial port. You can disable this by editing the /boot/cmdline.txt file

Depending on the version of Raspbian Linux you are using the contents of the file look like this